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Having listened to the shaking of the cape from a day ago, let’s analyze it with the lens of literality and tim-tim by tim-tim as a unit of measurement, and the exercise, rather than simple, was certainly simplistic – retaining it in the US. by the words Jorge Jesús is not responsible for everything that happened on the field in two months “because he did not train the Benfica players”; therefore, good things could not be imputed to him either.
It would not be simply simplistic, it would appear that this would be simplistic, since it is say in a day That “we will all have to assume our responsibility” because, 14 days later, what the technician said became unspoken when he decided to say “we had some fault, but enough that I am responsible”. To blame someone in this Arsenal-Benfica that followed, then, it would be Rafa.
The short and bearded man was the man most wanted by the team, meeting, again, with the three possible center-backs with Lucas Veríssimo and using them, calmly and discreetly, in the exits of the area, which were cleaner than in the previous week. because these three men had the patience to attract opponents, and then the guards and Weigl needed a few touches to find the free man. Left behind, then there was Rafa.
Strolling through the available terrain between the midfielders and the back of Seferovic, caught up front to arrest an Arsenal midfielder, the false forward irrequetizava-se in this falsehood, he fled the last English line and waited in the right places to receive the passes. He harvested a lot, but when he turned around he saw how the Benfica media were invariably around, in those moments, in these receptions.
Rafa’s impulses and attempts only left Seferovic calm and he scored in front of him. He had to wait for the bands, never too projected by the participation that he was asked to do when leaving the ball, or wait for two of the three midfielders who, by their nature, were slow to give him direct solutions for the goal: Pizzi did not break to attack spaces; Even less, the Moroccan is an apologist for the ball in the foot; and Weigl’s orderly game takes place a few meters behind.
Caught in these curves, Rafa also hesitated or rushed to decide how to attack the opponent from there. And all the time that Rafa, the most unbalanced player, had to wait, he let Arsenal regain positions and join the lines every time Benfica’s ball construction got ahead of him.
And, without having it, the 5-3-2 or 5-4-1 in which it was organized, depending on the availability of the mentioned little and bearded man to join the midfielder line, even kept the English out of the area during various phases of the first part.
The problems arose when Ceballos was disenchanted starting with the ball when he was allowed to turn around at the first touch, although, almost always, these insinuations in the English midfield. And, already in the middle of Benfica, when Arsenal concentrated the possession of a winger and Benfica did not prevent them from attacking the opposite winger with a long pass – usually, from the left, in Tierney or Aubameyang.
Or, in addition, when Saka moved away from the area to receive a ball, he had space to turn around, the repeated passivity of Benfica has been repeated in several games, Vertonghen left his rival and Aubameyang late, clarifying in the beards of Lucas and Otamendi’s back, ran into the space left by the Belgian central defender and the pass entered to hit the ball (21 ‘) on the body of Helton Leite.
ARIS MESSINIS / Getty
But the game continued like this, unchanged, with Benfica being very capable of exploring spaces within 70 meters of the pitch, one of the many plays that evaded Arsenal’s pressure ended in Weigl’s foul and the ball hit to stop. Diogo Gonçalves hit him with the tight curvature (43 ‘) and entered the inner goal, where Bernd Leno would have to belong to another species to reach him.
The draw was equalized again and Arsenal’s first 10 minutes after the break put Benfica in the area. David Luz and Gabriel ran more with the ball from behind, seduced Seferovic or Rafa to pressure them, and then the team manipulated the plays with only three midfielders in front of the last row.
At the end of those ten minutes, Jorge Jesús was in charge of ensuring that, from then on, there would be four midfielders in charge of the defense, he replaced Seferovic, Pizzi and Taarabt with Darwin, Gabriel and Everton and, between plays, Rafa. It was to park on the left in defensive moments. Not because of that, because of the correct positioning or exchanges, but, right after, Helton Leite grabbed the ball in a corner and hit it fast forward.
The singular guy who was there was Rafa, running after the fall of the meteorite that Ceballos reached first. But he thought, without looking, that the right thing to do was to head him, where the combination of his mistake with the Portuguese run gave the 1993-born the chance to feint the goalkeeper and score (61 ‘). The good that Benfica played on the feet of those most responsible for trying to harm Arsenal.
The English were supposed to charge, force and risk, whoever runs behind will always run urgently, and on the left side of the charge, Mikel Arteta brought Willian. The Brazilian’s technical simplicity annoyed the brute Diogo Gonçalves, fixing it to every ball he received and dragging it to the line, causing the space where Tierney received a pass, in the area. Everton thought that the Scotsman would go for the foot that he uses little, they dribbled and the side tied (67 ‘) again the game.
Thus drawing Benfica to pass, it was necessary to hold on to the result, the ball and the momentum of Arsenal, which went further ahead and pushed the players to the defensive line, pushing it against the area. He seemed to want to explore Lucas Veríssimo’s slow reaction when the Brazilian competed to compensate for the wingman’s back, but, until the end, the English would only see the goal once.
ARIS MESSINIS / Getty
Previously, Darwin would still receive and hold a ball with rarely seen pedestrian kindness, roll over himself, and shoot at the entrance to the area. The ball barely left the post. Gabriel, also turning on his axis, fired a ball blocked at mid-height by a body that was between him and the goal. That ball was already crossed by Nuno Tavares.
The winger on Grimaldo’s turn, just in time to give Bukayo Saka more than a meter, the left-hander with a ball on the edge of the area, almost inviting him to leave the feint for the foot he uses the most, which used to curve a cross with a cross on Lucas’s back, where the Brazilian had his arm looking at Aubameyang but let him slip away, and with him the head of the Gabonese, who deflected the 3-2. It was three minutes to 90 ‘, the short time that was almost nothing.
Benfica lost, they were eliminated from the Europa League (1-1 and 3-2) and Rafa will remember these games one day, he will know what happened and he will remember the non-glory of the tie, unlike the 1991 team of matches. Now, the same players and the same coach have been eliminated from a European competition for the second time at the same time, and in the same country.
In another empty stadium in Greece, where not a whistle of affection was heard. There would never be a cry of anything.
As for responsibilities, it is simple, if football were immune to mistakes, there would not be so many people enjoying watching and practicing on the same round planet. It’s natural and inevitable, every human makes mistakes and Vertonghen’s late reaction at 1-0, Everton’s hasty judgment at 2-2 and the lethargy of Nuno Tavares and Lucas at 3-2 were three errors among countless players who were committing Benfica and Arsenal.
And whoever makes mistakes will always be responsible for making them. Whoever it.
